Highly efficient superconducting diode effect in unconventional $p$-wave magnets

TL;DR

This paper predicts that unconventional p-wave magnetic materials can host highly efficient superconducting diode effects, especially under magnetic fields, offering promising avenues for energy-efficient logic devices in classical and quantum computing.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework showing that p-wave magnets can exhibit a highly efficient superconducting diode effect with finite momentum pairing under magnetic fields.

Findings

High diode efficiency achievable in p-wave magnets with finite momentum pairing.

Finite magnetic fields promote Fulde-Ferrell phase as the leading instability.

Potential for energy-efficient logic circuits using these materials.

Abstract

We investigate the emergence of superconducting phases, both with zero and finite Cooper-pair center of mass momenta, in recently proposed unconventional $p$-wave magnets. As a consequence, we find that, while these magnetic phases are in principle compatible with a conventional pairing state at zero field, a Fulde-Ferrell phase can generally be promoted as the leading instability under the application of a finite magnetic field. Interestingly, by calculating the efficiency of the superconducting diode effect of this finite momentum pairing state via a Ginzburg-Landau theory, we uncover that a high efficiency can be obtained in these systems for experimentally relevant spin splittings. Therefore, our prediction reveals that the experimental discovery of these new materials represents a promising platform for the construction of energy-efficient logic circuits that can potentially be used, e.g., in the fields of classical and quantum computing.